PAUNO POHJOLAINEN

Great mystery and inconceivable beauty are often present in the art of Pauno Pohjolainen. There is a thread running through his entire oeuvre as evidence of an unusual degree of possession and fascination. He is possessed by that which is powerful, alien and desirable... In the early days of his artist career, Pohjolainen was engrossed in spontaneous expression of the wild, the beautiful and the strong, but with time he has developed more of a conscious and keen sensitivity, interpreting the mystery by catching it in its own light...

Pauno Pohjolainen rose to the consciousness of the art world in the 80's as the prominent figure of the "Kuopio School". Before that he got nationally noticed getting the gold-medal in the annual event for young artists. Pohjolainen had an outpost position when the sosialistic realism in the art expression was broken. In the exhibion of the young 1980 his series of works "Disturber of the peace" (1980) was nationally epoch-making in questioning the format of the painting. Later his paintings moved from the wall to the floor, as for example "Alpha and omega" (1984).

In his reliefs Pohjolainen accents the presence of light and its various degrees using different types of wood in the same sculpture (The Big Light, 1994). In the 90's byzantine and orthodox themes come increasingly to the force in Pohjolainen's work. The Russian tradition of ecclesiastical art, with icons and goldleaf, emerges, undergoing an ingenious metamorphosis in Pohjolainen's sculptures (Christmas Night, 1997). He also observes the pevotional furnishings in the Russian-orthodox church - the lectern on which an important icon or the Bible rests, and, more specially, certain visual elements of the world of iconic art (To the Virgin Mary, 1996). Through an ingenious and highly original wood construction, Pohjolainen transforms the sculpture's painterly characteristics into an illusion of a three-dimensional object which takes on a tangible presence (The Virgin Mary's chair, 1998).

Pohjolainen also has a characteristic way of combining different forms and materials in his sculptures. He often uses opposites and contrasts, not just in his combination of painting and sculpture, but by combining wood with plastic, or an ascetic surface with a flamboyantly painted surface. Light meets dark, a rough wood surface a smooth serene surfice. Soft, rounded shapes are combined with sharply geometric shapes (Whereunto shall I resemble the Kingdom of Heaven, 1997). In the course of time Pohjolainen has also used fibre-glass and epoxy-resin (Illusion I, 1985-86), different metal plates and nets (Pennies from Heaven, 2001) and throughout coloured concrete (Upper Hall, 1993).

Among Pohjolainen's numerous commissioned works can be mentioned "Sauna and sisu" (2003) in the Finnish Embassy in Canberra, Australia and the relief "Life stream" (2005), on the facade of the Hesperia Mental Hospital in Helsinki. He is considered to be one of the Finnish reneweres of ecclesiastical art. Altar-pieces created by Pohjolainen are found in Rantasalmi (1989) and Laajasalo, Helsinki (2003) churches and Petonen (Kuopio, 1999) Parish House, to mention some of his numerous works for sacred spaces and funeral chapels.

Pauno Pohjolainen was awarded the Ars Fennica 1997 prize, which is the biggest prize for visual arts in the Nordic countries. The final choice was made by Declan McGonagle, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Ireland, and in his statement he made explaining his choice of the prize-winner: "Pauno has a very strong presence within his own community as well as nationally. His work involves traditional materials and processes which are articulated by a point of view which is clearly contemporary and outward looking... Pauno manages to create a synthesis between historical universal elements and his own individual artistic language to express his ideas..."

In 2005 Pauno Pohjolainen was confered the Pro Finladia-medal.

(Quotations from the Ars Fennica -catalogue 1998/Dan Sundell).